AWS Parries Google with More Flexible Reserved Instances

Days after Google unveiled its pricing model for reserved compute capacity, Amazon Web Services (AWS) answered with a new flexibility benefit in its competing Reserved Instances model.

AWS on Monday announced that it is making it easier for its customers to stretch the value of their Reserved Instances. Reserved Instances, or RIs, let customers reserve a set amount and type of Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instances from AWS for a specific amount of time -- in either one- or three-year terms -- and at a lower-than-list price.

Starting this month, AWS customers can jump from one instance size to another at the same discounted rate, as long as they remain within the same instance family and don't exceed the capacity of their initial RI. For example, customers who have purchased a c4.8xlarge instance now have the option to run 16 c4.large instances, four c4.2xlarge instances or two c4.4xlarge instances.

In addition, customers who occasionally exceed their instance capacity will pay a discounted rate for the overage, not full price.

The new policy is effective immediately and will automatically apply to users' accounts, according to AWS evangelist Jeff Barr in a blog post. One caveat: The flexibility benefits currently apply only to Linux/UNIX, not Windows.

"All Regional Linux/UNIX RIs with shared tenancy now apply to all sizes of instances within an instance family and AWS region, even if you are using them across multiple accounts via Consolidated Billing. This will further reduce the time that you spend managing your RIs and will let you be even more creative and innovative with your use of compute resources," Barr said in the blog.

AWS announced the new flexibility benefits just days after Google launched a preview of its Committed Use Discounts model for reserved virtual machines.

About the Author

Gladys Rama is the senior site producer for RCPmag.com and senior editor of AWSInsider.net.